Quarters
by RaiRoRa
Summary: This is a one-off four-part story. The division take a town that surrenders peacefully and seek quarters for the night. One shot, one night.
1. Chapter 1: The Rider

"It's not that it weren't good," Grady said. "It's just ..."  
He wrinkled his nose, searching for words.  
"It's just that I would surely appreciate a bit more time with a woman."  
Bible, his eyes fixed through the sights, _uh-huh_ed in approval.  
"That's what I've been telling you, Grady: you need to find yourself a lady."  
"Naw, I ain't gonna find myself no lady. I just wanna woman to spend the whole night with."  
"_Madre de Dios_..." Gordo cried. "You hear that, Norman? Bible finally made an impression on this guy, eh?"  
The second driver made no answer but Don knew he was probably smiling his nervous smile, never entirely sure where a conversation with Grady might end.

Listening to the crackling conversation over the coms, Don grinned and removed a glove to wipe his forehead. What came off on his hand was sweat and blood, mostly flaky and dried, from the wound on his temple. When had he got it? A day ago? Two days ago?  
Without proper sleep it was hard to have a proper sense of time.  
"You boys better not take your eyes off the ball," he said. "We don't know what we're heading into in this town."  
He looked down at the map: if they could take Mörrbach without much resistance, it would mean a night of rest for them all. Waggoner had promised some down time; God knows the men needed it. Some food, a stolen bed and beer, a woman.

Grady certainly had plans, anyway.  
"In a real bed," he was saying. "Don't matter much if it's not fancy, main thing is I have a mattress underneath me. Well, a woman on a mattress underneath me."  
There was a silence and Don grinned to himself, imagining Bible struggling to keep his composure.  
"Well, spending the whole night with her is certainly a step in the right direction."  
Bible's voice sounded encouraging.  
"Yeah, 'cuz I wanna wake up with some woman's mouth around my – "  
"GRADY TRAVIS!" Bible roared.

_Civilians on the road.  
With a white flag!  
_The coms crackled to life.  
Don picked up his binoculars. The road was narrow and it dipped down into a small valley. Beyond that, a mile or two away, he saw the roofs and church spire of the next town. A sign, bent almost to the ground, pointed at the sky and announced that Mörrbach was five kilometres away.

He spied a small group: three men standing next to a small car. With a woman in a long dress? No, a man in a long dress. A robe, he corrected himself. It was a priest. Four men. And a rider on a prancing horse. The horse was moving skittishly, the rider allowing it to move back and forth, picking its footsteps as though it were dancing. He trained the binoculars on the horse: it was a fine beast; its coat seemed shiny and well-cared for. It looked healthier than most of the civilians they had encountered.

They drew cautiously closer and one of the Germans came forward, waving a white flag. Collier ordered his men to stop and the group ground slowly to a halt. He waited, the intercom in hand, to see what the civilians would do next.  
"Eyes all round," he said, "We don't know if this is a trap."  
The rider came forward, urging the horse on.  
"It's a woman," Don said down the com.  
She was wearing a tight-fitting tweed jacket and as she approached, she removed her hat – probably to show them that she was female. She stopped a few metres from the Fury.  
"_Hallo_," she called.  
"_Was wollen Sie?_" Don shouted. _What do you want?_  
She looked momentarily surprised.  
"_Wir wollen uns ergeben_," she answered. _We want to surrender. "Die Bevölkerung der Stadt Mörrbach möchte sich ergeben. Wir wollen kein Blutvergießen mehr."  
The people of the town of Mörrbach wish to surrender. We want no more bloodshed.  
"Näher treten,"_ Don ordered. _Step forward._

The horse walked forward, till it was level with the Fury. She held the reins tight, but it snorted, rolling its eyes. The proximity to the large iron monster clearly made it nervous.  
"_Sie sprechen Deutsch_," the woman stated, nodding at Don.  
She was in her late thirties, her dark hair was combed back into a bun at the nape of her neck and her dark eyes were cool, assessing. She was dressed like something from a movie, Don thought, like one of those British ladies heading out for the hunt: jodhpurs, tweed jacket and a crisp white blouse. Except for the fact that her face was thin and gaunt, her jacket worn and frayed at the cuffs, she might have been about to ride out with the hounds.

_"__Ja, ich spreche Deutsch. Und Sie – sprechen Sie Englisch?"_ he asked. _  
_"Indeed, I most certainly do," she replied and Don almost jumped in fright.  
The woman's accent was the same clipped English accent of those British officers they had met in France. It sounded perfect, flawless – unlike his own German, which was coloured by his American twang.  
"What _are_ you?" he asked, shocked.  
She tipped her head to the side, her lips curling into a small smile.  
"I'm a _woman_," she enunciated, as though he were deaf, or stupid. "We're just like men, but smaller. And smarter, I believe."  
The horse stepped nervously and she quietened it, looking Don up and down: "Just how long _have_ you been in that tank, my good man?"  
Gordo and Norman snorted and Don felt a wide grin split his face. The rider smiled at him in return, a cool smile that gave nothing away. She had high cheekbones and wide mouth; with a few pounds more on her frame, she had probably been a handsome woman.

"You know what I mean," he said. "Are you English?"  
"No, I'm German," she said.  
"Then how come you speak English so good?"  
"The reason _why_ I speak English so _well_ is that I went to boarding school in England," she said with exaggerated patience. "Mama and Papa thought a little English schooling would give me some polish."  
She cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow.  
"In any case," she said, "I was to be your official interpreter, but as you can speak German, I see that my services are no longer needed. I wish you the very best of luck on your continued campaign."  
The woman clicked her tongue and the horse shifted.

"No, no, wait," Don said. "You're not going anywhere."  
He pulled off his helmet, wincing as it tore at the dried blood and climbed out of the tank. Behind him, Binkowski did the same, while Peterson waited watchfully, his gun trained on the group.

The woman pulled the horse back; it stepped skittishly and moved away from the column, backing onto the grass verge by the road.  
Grady's head popped out of the hatch and he pulled himself up and out, Bible's head appeared immediately after.  
"My goodness," the woman said placing a gloved hand over her heart in exaggerated shock. "It's like a magic trick. Like the car full of clowns at the circus."  
Grady leered at her, pulling a cigarette from the pocket of his overalls. She looked away, down at Don, who was approaching her, a hand outstretched tentatively. He reached out to pat the horse, but her hand shot out and smacked him away.  
"She bites," the rider said.  
"Like her owner?" Don replied.  
_That sounded flirtatious_, he realized.

He thought he'd forgotten how to flirt with a woman, but apparently not. The rider seemed to take it that way, too. She bent down so her face was closer to his, close enough for him to get a whiff of lilac.  
"Don't get close enough to find out," she said quietly. "You wouldn't want to lose that pretty little trigger finger."  
Don felt winded, as though someone had punched him to the gut and taken the breath from his throat. He suppressed the urge to laugh out loud.

"What's going on, Don?" Binkowski said.  
He eyed the woman up and down appreciatively, even made a salutary gesture, as though doffing an invisible cap, with the hand not holding his gun.  
"Ma'am," he said, grinning.  
"Sir," she replied, deadpan.  
"This is our interpreter," he said. "They wanna surrender, this one speaks English. What's your name?"  
"Kaiser, Marie Kaiser," she replied. She was struggling to keep the horse steady. It didn't like Binkowski, it appeared.  
"Surrender without a fight?" Binkowski wanted to know.  
Don shushed the horse and it blinked at him nervously.  
He rubbed the horse's muzzle, ignoring the woman's hiss as his hand touched her animal. The horse skitted, then seemed to calm under his touch.  
"There will be no resistance," she said to Binkowski, dragging her eyes away from Don. "But I would proceed with caution, if I were you. I cannot guarantee that there will not be a couple of fanatics who will not surrender without a fight."  
"We always proceed with caution," Don said quietly.  
The horse snorted, watching him.

"Of course, the greatest danger is that of being bored to death by the bunch of old farts waiting to escort you down into town," she said, nodding at them over her shoulder.  
She gestured at them to approach and they did so, moving forward slowly, their hands over their heads.  
"The priest will probably try to make you attend mass," she said through the gritted teeth of her cool smile. "You have been warned. You can always bypass the town and keep going. It's too late for me but you can still save yourselves."  
Binkowski's laughter rang out and the men in the tanks whooped in response to his raucous laugh. Don dipped his head so she wouldn't see him grin,  
"What did she say, Bin? Why you laughin'? The Nazi bitch tell a joke?" one of the men called.  
"She's funny," Binkowski said over his shoulder, turning back to look at the woman on the horse with an appreciative look on his face.  
"Between you and me," she said, inclining her head towards Binkowski, "if the priest should accidentally get shot, I don't think anyone would mind."  
Binkowski looked startled, then laughed again. Don bit his lip, trying not to laugh but she caught his eye and he couldn't stop his grin.

"Good luck," she muttered as the men approached, the priest's robe flapping in the April breeze.  
She pulled the horse away from Don and dismounted. She was smaller than he expected. Off the horse, she seemed almost frail: he could see the bones in her hands as she clutched the reins tighter.  
_"Meine Herren," _she said, inclining her head,_ "Vater Hoffmann, das sind Amerikaner. Dieser hier ist wohl der Chef. Er heißt –_ what's your name, tank boss? "  
"Sergeant Don Collier," he replied_. "Sie ergeben sich? Sind Sie der Bürgermeister?"  
_The mayor, the man holding the flag, stepped forward. Don accepted their capitulation, told them what they needed to do. Behind him, the men's chatter broke out and some of the foot soldiers whooped.

Don spoke to the Germans briefly and told them what they had planned.  
"Nicht plündern," the mayor said pleadingly. "Bitte nicht plündern. Sagen Sie ihm, wir haben schon gehört, was die Amerikanern anstellen…"  
"We won't loot the town," Don said shortly. "You can tell him that. But some of the soldiers plan on having a good time."  
The woman nodded and passed the message on to the mayor, who didn't look very assured by Collier's promise.  
"You stay with here," he said to the rider, pointing at a spot on the ground to emphasize his words.  
"I'd rather not," she replied.  
"Binkowski," he snapped, "make sure she stays here. Shoot her if she attempts to leave."

The woman yelped indignantly but he marched towards the Fury and got on the coms, passing the message along the line and on to Waggoner and his men. As he did, he watched Binkowski giving the German woman the full force of his charm, offering her a cigarette and, when she refused, a chocolate bar, which she also turned down.  
"Nazi bitch," Grady muttered, his chin resting on the machine gun. "Binkowski tryin' to get in her pants and he gonna strike out, I kin see that from here. I think you have a chance, though, Don. Think she likes you."  
"Her horse does, anyway," he answered drily.  
"Then if worse comes to worse, at least you kin fuck her horse," Grady replied with his barking laugh. Bible scolded him but his words were lost in the sound of the others' laughter. They were all merry with relief – no fighting.

Don shook his head ruefully and beckoned the woman over. Around him, the men got ready to move, the tanks started up. She hesitated, remounted and approached on the nervous horse. He climbed down out of the tank and petted its muzzle.  
"You heard what I said: we'll be staying the night in Mörrbach. We'll need food, shelter, the men will want to drink," he said to her.  
She nodded.  
"I'm sure that can be arranged with the mayor," she said, emphasizing the word _mayor_ a bit more than necessary. She stared at him frankly, looking at his scars: she had odd eyes, a kind of tawny green or brown, he wasn't quite sure. Without warning, she leaned down and grabbed a hank of his hair, moving his head to the side so she could look at the wound.

"You will need to get that cleaned and stitched," she said in her clipped tone. "You shall very probably need some kind of medicine to prevent you contracting an infection."  
She said _med-sin_, not _medicine_, like some of the English guys had – the ones with fancy names like Rupert and Montgomery, with their sloping chins and receding hairlines.  
"You a nurse?" Don said, freeing his hair from her hand. She patted his head as though it were a horse's forelock and smiled at him, giving him the tiny smile that was barely an upturning of her lips.  
"I'm a doctor," she said.  
"You gonna sew it up for me then?"  
"Certainly not."  
"Why not?"  
"You've got a lorry full of doctors back there," she said, pointing down the line of vehicles. "Have them do their bloody jobs."

"Don!" Peterson called. "Come on!"  
"I want to see you in the town," he said. "That's an order."  
She snorted.  
"I'm serious," he said.  
She rolled her eyes.  
"You're gonna sew this wound for me," he said, climbing back on the tank. He wagged a finger at her in warning. "If I have to endure the priest, the least you can do is sew this up."  
She clicked her tongue again and loosened the reins. The horse cantered off across the field, down the valley road to the town. He climbed back into the tank and waved at the column behind him, then indicated to the mayor that he and his colleagues should head on ahead of them.

"Wardaddy's got himself some plans to go ridin'" Grady said casually. He leaned over and slapped the sergeant's calf. "Dontcha, Don?"  
Don looked down the hatch at him and tried not to grin.  
"Shut the fuck up, Coon Ass," he said, but it was clear he didn't mean it.


	2. Chapter 2: The Doctor

Boyd Swan did not like it.  
He did not like the chaos and anarchy that came with the taking of a town. It was Sodom and Gomorrah; it was the blurring of the lines between the righteous and the damned. The German populace, gaunt-faced and hesitant, were mingling with the triumphant Americans. As promised, there was no bloodshed: the soldiers – the children masquerading as soldiers – had been rounded up and the MPs had seen to it that the two SS officers still remaining had not been shot on sight, much to Wardaddy's chagrin.

Now the town square was filled with American soldiers drinking beer and squeezing some of the local women, who had emerged out of the nearby houses, giggling shyly behind their hands. An old man had huffed and hauled a dusty case of champagne into the middle of the square and Boyd had watched one of the soldiers remove a cork with a slash of his knife, the liquid spouting everywhere like a fountain. The men had cheered, grabbing bottles, and soon champagne was being swigged, corks popping like gunfire.

"Cheers!" they roared and the Germans shouted, "_Prost_!"

and they clinked bottles, saluting – what? The end of war? The town's capitulation? Their surrender?

Boyd did not know, and he did not like it.  
He preferred it when the Germans were trying to kill him; then he knew what to do. He preferred them when they were not trying to be friendly; as far as he was concerned, a friendly German was a dangerous German. Watching Gordo with his arm around a blond German girl, who was giggling and stroking his face, watching Grady jog a chubby toddler on his arm, pulling faces to make the child laugh, made him uneasy.

He looked for Don, who was huddled in a group with Peterson, Binkowski, Davis and Waggoner, discussing something intently. Waggoner gestured at the tanks behind him and they all nodded. Davis raised his arm in a lazy stretch and yawned, rubbing his eyes.

"So we'll really stay the night by the looks of things," said Norman, at his side.

As usual, the young private was quiet, so quiet that Boyd hadn't even noticed him beside him.

"Looks like it," he mumbled, watching Don.

All the way down to the town in the tank, Grady and Gordo had teased him about the woman on the horse – the opportunity to make off-colour jokes about the sergeant getting in her saddle, riding her hard, reining her in, was just too much for them to resist. And even though Wardaddy had told them to cut it out, there was a grin in his voice and Boyd could tell that he didn't mind the teasing.

This pissed him off.  
The sergeant was supposed to set a good example for his men and, God knows, he'd always seemed to hold himself back when the other degenerates took off to fondle the local girls. If Don had found a woman on any of their stops, he'd kept it to himself and they had never known – maybe suspected, but never known for sure. Now it seemed like he'd set his cap on the German bitch on that snappy black horse, the one with the cold face and the snooty accent. Boyd listened to Gordo howl with laughter as Grady good-naturedly encouraged Don in his most foul-mouthed redneck way – "You gonna give her what for, Don? You gonna make surrender again? Kin I come and watch?" – till he could stand it no more.

"I'm willing to bet good money she's married to an SS," Boyd had said loudly. "Woman like that, she's an officer's wife."

That silenced the chatter momentarily.

"And? Your point, Bible?" Collier asked casually.  
Dangerously casual.

"Her husband's SS, she's SS," Boyd said. "That's all. That's my point."

"Maybe she's not married," Norman piped up.

"Maybe she ain't," Grady agreed.

"I'm willing to bet she is. Like I said, I seen enough SS to know their type. And she's one of those cocksucker's wives," Bible said. "An' that's all I'm gonna say about that."  
He jutted his chin out stubbornly.  
Grady dragged on his cigarette, the only sound in the tank, except for the grinding sound of the engine.

"I still think Don should fuck 'er," he said finally.  
They all laughed.  
All of them except Bible, who just fumed.

xXx

Don was talking to the old man who'd brought out the case of champagne. Boyd didn't understand anything, but the old man was shaking his head. He hoped Don was organizing quarters for them for the night; someone would have to stay with the tank but he dearly hoped it wouldn't be him.

He looked at Norman and saw the same hope written all over his face. He, too, was leaning towards Don, as though he might understand something that was being said. But the only word that Boyd could pick out was doctor – _Doktor_.  
The old man gestured to a side street leading off the square.

"_Danke_," Don said and returned to the tank. He snatched up his satchel. "You boys be okay?" he asked shortly.

"Where you goin', Don?" Boyd asked.

"None of your business, Bible."

"You gonna look for that Nazi bitch?" he snapped.

"Like I said," Don replied equably, "that ain't none of your business."  
He slung the bag over his shoulder and switching his machine gun to the other hand to do so.

"You can't just wander off by yourself," Boyd said. "Remember what you're always telling us? This is enemy territory, even if they're all out here kissing our asses and giving us beer. No one should be wandering around by himself. That's the only sure-fire way to get yourself killed. Remember, Don? You remember saying that?"

Collier paused, gritted his teeth.  
"Fine," he snapped. "_Fine_. I'm going to find that doctor and have her sew my wound. You happy, Bible?"

"No, I ain't happy, Top."

Don waved at Gordo who was leading the blond woman over the the tank. Grady had his arms around two young girls, who were giggling. One was already stuffing his D-ration chocolate bar into her mouth.

"You two look after the Fury," he said to Gordo. "Don't get up to too much trouble, you hear?"

He walked off in the direction the old man had pointed to, not looking back.  
Bible snatched his bag and Norman followed suit.

"Sew your wound," Bible grumbled. "I know what that means. Sew your wound, my ass!"  
They scurried after Don, who did not look back or give any indication that he knew they were behind him.

xXx

_Silbergasse_ was the name of the street. It was cobbled and beyond its end, Don could already see farmland. Mörrbach was very small, more of a village than a town, and a ten-minute walk led you back out to the fields around it. He passed a pharmacy and a clothing store, whose window display was a faded skirt on a patched mannequin, and kept going. Other houses had their wooden shutters closed; behind the thick net curtains of the upper floors he knew that he and his two men were being watched. He kept his gun at the ready; the street seemed deserted, but he knew the houses were full of people silently watching his every step, wondering where the three Americans were going.

At the end of the street there was a brass sign on the wall: _Arztpraxis Kaiser. _  
The doctor's surgery.  
The windows were boarded up and an iron bar was locked across the door. Don stepped back and looked up. The upper windows were draped with those infernal net curtains; he couldn't tell if she was upstairs looking down at him or not.

"Top," Norman said and nodded at an archway.

Next to the house was an arch that led into a courtyard. It was a typical German _Hof_, Don realized, a small inner courtyard surrounded by buildings. The ground floor seemed to house stables or a barn, but most of the doors and windows were boarded up. The windows of the upper floors were shuttered. The place looked deserted.

Don's ears pricked up. He heard a familiar sound, the sound of a horse snorting, and he looked through the doorway of the outbuilding closest to the arch. The black horse was inside, complacently chewing hay. When Don darkened the doorway, it rolled its eyes, its ears back.

"Don't mind me," he said to the horse and went back outside.

"_Top_," Norman said again in the same warning voice.

The woman was standing in the doorway at the back of the doctor's office. She was no longer wearing her riding clothes, but had changed into a skirt and a navy pullover that had a jaunty fair isle pattern across the chest. She said nothing as they approached, her hands clenched by her side.

"I woulda thought the army requisitioned all the horses," Don said conversationally as he approached. "How come you have one?"

She raised an eyebrow archly.  
"Best not to ask questions you don't want to know the answers to," she replied. "In other words, mind your own business."

He grinned at her and imagined he saw a ghost of a grin on her face in return.  
"You wanted to sew this wound," Don said.

"No, I did not," she countered. She hesitated, then said, "Come in, anyway."

"You're Dr Kaiser?" he asked.

She hesitated again and said, "Yes, I am."

She led them into a dark hallway, opened a door and switched on a light. It was a small waiting room.

"You two can wait here," she said to Bible and Norman. "I will be as quick as I can."

"Is this where you practice medicine?" Norman asked, looking around.

"No," she replied.

"I thought you were a doctor," he said, glancing at Don.

"I am," was her short reply. "But I cannot practise. I've never practised. Not officially, anyway."

"Why not?" Boyd asked, looking her up and down.

"Because I'm a _woman_," she said tapping her chest, and then frowned at his confused face. "I finished my studies in 1932 and Mr Hitler came to power in 1933."

"So?"  
She laughed, a mirthless laugh.

"You don't know? Well, the National Socialists decided that it would be best for women not to practise law or medicine, you know, so they forbade it. Nothing worse than an ambitious woman, you see. We should stay at home, make babies and look after our husbands."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with that," Bible said argumentatively.  
She glanced at Collier, her face expressionless.

"Well, I am certain that Hitler would be jolly pleased to know you agree," she said. "Come on, you."  
And she beckoned Don to follow her.

Kaiser opened another door and led Don inside. The windows to the street were boarded up, the windows that faced the courtyard were unboarded and the weak spring sunlight poured in.

"So whose place is this, then?" he asked, sitting where she gestured him to sit.

"It was my father-in-law's, and then my husband's," she replied, bending to look in a cupboard under a large porcelain sink.

She took out some cloths and a steel bowl, filled it with water from the tap.  
"Is he at the front?"

"He's dead," she replied, sitting back down beside him on a small swivel stool. "Philipp died at the start of the war."

"In combat?"

"You ask a lot of questions, tank boss," she said.

"I'm a curious guy. Humour me."  
Kaiser drew a deep breath: silently, like a sigh of resignation., then she pulled his face toward her and started to dab at the wound.  
Don winced and she glared at him.

"Despite the fact that your men charmingly call me a Nazi bitch, I am not, nor ever was, a National Socialist. Nor was my husband, who had the misfortune of being a passionate pacifist born into a family of fanatical nationalists."

She smiled, wringing the dirty cloth out into the bowl of water on the table beside her.  
" My brother-in-law, Alfred, his older brother, could not sign up fast enough to fight for the _Vaterland_ and my stupid father-in-law cheered him on. _So stolz_, so proud. He had a fine, brave older son and a weak, pathetic younger one."

She pulled Don's chin roughly so she could dab the wound with a cloth.  
" – And Alfred died almost immediately. Of measles. Before he ever got near any fighting. So my poor husband, fool that he was, felt compelled to join the army as a medical officer, in the hope of saving other young men from needless deaths."

"And did he?"

She met his eyes, those odd-coloured eyes were distant, thinking of something else.  
"I don't know," she said, in her clipped way. "He was killed in Poland in 1940 by a dissident bomb. They ambushed a truck and there was some kind of makeshift device that blew up part of the convoy. They say he was very brave, that he rushed to help his comrades. He was even awarded a medal posthumously. It's _terribly_ fancy."

Her mouth twisted into a grimace.

"My father-in-law was jolly proud of him – of course, he had to die before that old boar had any respect for him, but better late than never, I suppose."  
She laughed her cold laugh, the one that sounded like a laugh but contained no humour, no mirth. "Ironic, I suppose. Philipp would have found it funny, I should think."

"Your father-in-law still around?" Don said, glancing around as though the old man might walk in at any moment.

"No, Dr Kaiser Senior died a few years ago. My mother-in-law passed away at Christmas. Now it's just me."

"That's why the place is all boarded up?"

"Yes."

She threw down the cloth.  
"You are so filthy," she said frankly. "I don't even know where to begin. Please go to the sink and scrub your face. And your neck. Try not to touch the wound directly, but clean around it as much as you can."

He stood and walked over to the sink, catching sight of himself in the mirror above it. No wonder she looked at him as though he were some kind of wild animal: his face was smeared black with dirt and dried blood, the area around his eyes that had been protected by his goggles and field glasses was three or four shades lighter than the skin of his cheeks and neck. He pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the chair, then his shirt. His undershirt was stuck to his neck with dried blood and he hissed as he pulled it off, pulling the skin as he did. He tossed it on top of the rest of the clothes but it slid to the floor.

"Sorry," he said as she bent to pick it up.

He turned the tap and dipped his head to dunk it in the icy water, gasping as it ran over his skull and neck, down into dirty rivulets in the white sink. As she'd ordered, he tried to avoid wetting the wound directly at first, but then thought, _Fuck it_, and wet his entire head, rubbing his hand through his hair and watching the water grow darker still. He resisted the urge to shake his head like a dog and splatter the white tiles with water.

When he turned around, Kaiser was standing behind him in silence, holding a towel, staring at his back.  
She gave it to him wordlessly and he rubbed his hair, turning the threadbare white towel a dirty grey.

"Turn around," she said and he did, slowly, showing her the burn scars on his back. He expected her to ask how he got them – most people did – but she said nothing at first.  
"Third degree," she stated after a moment. Her voice was factual, without emotion. "Is the skin … " She searched for the word. "Is the skin tight? Are the scars … uncomfortable?"

"Sometimes," he admitted.

Sometimes his skin felt like a hair-shirt, a straitjacket, when every move seemed to pull and tear. He reached for the undershirt but she shook her head, so he sat back down on the chair while she looked in a cupboard beside the sink, pulling out a little earthenware tub.

Kaiser cleaned and sewed the wound.

"Two stitches," she said. "You should've had this sewn when it happened, not days after. It will leave a scar. _Another_ scar."  
And the pad of her thumb traced the scar over his lip.

"This is not good work," she said lightly. "Not very pretty. My sewing, on the other hand, is beautiful."

"Thanks," he said and opened his mouth to say something else – but she raised a hand.

"I want to put something on your back," she said. "If I may. It's just to … how do you say it? To soften the skin, to make it more supple."

"It's not necessary," Don said, starting to stand, but she pulled him back down.

He watched her open the tub and scrape out what was left of the ointment.  
"Don't waste that on me," he began awkwardly. "You might need that for someone – "

"Why? We have been defeated, have we not?" she said, moving her stool behind him. "The war is all but over. Isn't it?"

He wanted to reply but the cold of the cream on his back stopped him. She pushed the back of his head, pushing him forward till his elbows were resting on his knees, then she slowly and gently rubbed the salve on his skin.  
Collier closed his eyes, screwed them shut.  
Her fingers were light, stroking the skin, and the touch made him almost dizzy. He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him this tenderly.  
Then he caught himself and laughed under his breath. Things were certainly bad if he was getting mushy about a doctor slapping some fucking burn cream on his back.  
_Jesus Christ.  
_She rolled her stool back to face him.

"Are you all right?" she asked, curious. "Does it hurt?"

"Nope," he said, straightening up.  
He grabbed his undershirt and put it on, not looking at her. Out of the corner of her eye, he saw her replace the lid of the tub, wipe her hands, and start to fold the dirty cloths. She seemed as intent on ignoring him as he was to avoid her.

Don yanked the door open; Norman and Boyd were nodding on the chairs, their heads lolling against the wall. Their eyes flew open at the sound of the door.

"Everything okay, Top?" Bible asked. "She sew you up okay?"

"Sure did," he answered. "Get your things."

He could sense her close behind him; he could smell her lilac scent, the smell of the cream on his back, her fingers. He turned and words tumbled out of his mouth without him controlling them:  
"We need quarters for the night. Can we stay here?"

Kaiser looked at him, then at Bible and Norman, her eyes resting on the boy for longer: Norman's face was wan and filthy, his eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. Don saw her lips pinch.

"Here? In _my_ house?" she said.

"We have some food," Collier said, ignoring Bible's huff of disapproval.

Kaiser looked at him, her hazel eyes were assessing.  
"I assume I do not have a choice," she said slowly. "Fine. You can stay the night. _Bitte schön,_" she added, holding the door open for them. "Go straight up the stairs. The door's unlocked."


	3. Chapter 3: The Dinner

The apartment door was unlocked, as the German woman had promised.

Norman pushed the door open and was greeted by a wave of heat. The apartment was warm; he immediately started to sweat, pulling his helmet off and loosening the collar of his jacket.

Boyd stomped in behind him, then pushed him gently aside as Don joined them in the small hall, and finally the woman. She looked at them silently, and then said, "Please come this way."

They went through tall double doors into a long living room that seemed full of assorted jumble: a large table was pushed up against the wall, some of its chairs around it and two or three more stacked next to the door. A sofa stood on elegant, spindly legs next to the tall windows that looked out over the courtyard, covered in brightly embroidered cushions and a blanket made of strips of different coloured yarn. In one corner there was a large tiled stove, some kind of chimney. Norman could hear the crackle of a fire and wished he could remove a couple of layers of clothing.

Don looked around and laid his gun on the table, removed his satchel and put it down next to it. The doctor still didn't say a word; she stood next to the table, her fingers touching its polished surface, as though the wood might earth her, prevent her from a shock.  
"Put your guns down, boys," he ordered.  
Norman did, eagerly, but Bible made no sign of disguising his ill-will, laying his gun down noisily.

She cleared her throat.  
"Allow me to show you where you will sleep," she said, glancing at Don.  
He nodded and jerked his head at Boyd.  
"You heard her," he said.

She beckoned to Norman and the two soldiers followed her into the hall. She opened a door and switched on the light. The bulb shone dimly. She hesitated for a moment, then turned it off and went to the window, opening it, then pushing open the wooden shutters outside.  
"In for a penny as in for a pound, eh?" she said to Norman, but he didn't understand what she meant.

He blinked in the sudden light and looked around.  
The room was neat: two single beds covered with two pale blue counterpanes and a small table between them. There was a crucifix on the wall over the table with the wash-stand and a small book shelf that contained only a few books.  
"I hope this is ..." she searched for the word.  
"It's wonderful," Norman said fervently. "It's wonderful. Thank you, ma'am."  
And he meant it: since joining the army, the height of luxury had been a few nights on a hard cot in a draughty tent. Now he was faced with the prospect of a night in a warm bed, in a warm room, with real blankets.

The doctor smiled, a real smile, not the wary grimace she gave to Don and Norman felt emboldened to ask, "May I please wash up?"  
"The dishes?" she asked, confused.  
"Sorry?"  
"You want to wash up the dishes?"  
He barked a laugh.  
"No, no, ma'am, I want to wash myself. That's what we say: wash up."  
"Ah, I see."  
She looked him up and down and said, "Come."

The bathroom was next door. Norman almost wept: a real bath! A _bath_!  
"There is probably not enough hot water for three baths," she said, smiling. "But maybe for a shower."  
"That's fine," he said.  
"You have soap?"  
"Yes, yes, ma'am."  
"Wait here, I'll get you towels."

She disappeared back into the living room and Bible poked his head around the door.  
"You gonna get all clean?" he asked.  
"Sure am," Norman replied cheerfully, removing his jacket. "From head to toe. I'm going to scrub every single bit of tank dirt and grime – "  
The doctor slid around Bible in the doorway and placed a pile of clothing on the chair beside the bathtub.  
"Pyjamas," she said shortly. "Socks, undershirts. Pullovers – a bit moth-eaten, I'm afraid. I haven't had time to unravel them yet but maybe that's just as well. And towels."

Bible picked up one of the sweaters, a cream hand-knit sweater with wooden buttons down the front.  
"Who does this belong to?" he asked suspiciously.  
"My husband," she said. "He passed away a few years ago."  
"A dead man's sweater," Boyd said. "Nice."

The woman squared up to him.  
"You don't have to wear any of it," she said in her cool voice. "Suit yourself."  
She left the room abruptly.  
"Darn, Boyd," Norman said. "She was only being helpful."  
"You wanna wear a dead German's clothes? Go ahead, but I ain't."  
"Fine," he snapped. "Now get out of here while I wash."

He scrubbed his skin raw, rubbed his scalp till it tingled. The bathtub turned grey and he felt bad for dirtying it but didn't know how to get it clean. Besides, he reasoned, Bible and the Sergeant would probably want to wash as well, so it was going to get much dirtier before the day was out.

He stepped out onto the thin rug and looked at the clothes on the chair. The pyjamas pants were much too long, but they were a warm flannel and clean: he could see the crisp lines of the iron when he shook them out. He picked out a pair of socks, thick knitted socks, and put them on his feet, wriggling his toes in delight. Then he pulled on the sweater that Boyd had sneered at: the arms were so long he had to roll the cuffs and the wool was scratchy against his chin. But, man, it was warm and dry and it didn't smell of grease, damp and sweat.

Norman opened the bathroom door and padded into the living room, and then immediately stood, stock-still, in the doorway. The atmosphere in the room was – electric. But not in a good way. In the way the air felt before a thunderstorm: charged and snappy.

_Headache weather,_ his mom used to call it.

Don was standing beside a bookshelf with a large book in his hands, holding it over the woman's head. He looked up when Norman came in and the doctor used the opportunity to grab it back off him and slam it shut.  
"_Nein_!" she said to the sergeant and said something sharply to him in German.

He eyed her defiantly, then slowly strolled over to the table and sat down, pulling a newspaper from a pile in the middle. Apart from the newspapers, there were two packs of American cigarettes on the table, unopened and untouched.  
"You look like you robbed a scarecrow," he said to Norman, rustling the pages.  
"A _clean_ scarecrow," the boy replied, trying to lighten the mood.  
Don didn't reply; he was watching the woman through the doorway that led to the little kitchen.  
"Bible taking a wash?" he asked distractedly.  
"I think so," Norman said, hearing the faint sound of water running.  
Collier _hmm_-ed and buried his head in the newspaper.

Norman went into the kitchen, clearing his throat so as not to startle the woman at the sink. She was washing a pile of rice in a sieve and looked up when he came in. The expression on her face made him felt inexplicably guilty: for a second fear flashed across her face, then she smoothed it back behind her mask of cool politeness.  
"Can I do anything to help?" he asked.  
"You know how to cook?" she said, slightly incredulously.  
"I wouldn't say that, but I used to have to help out at home a lot. My mom said every man should know how to fend for himself."  
She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and said, "She sounds like a wise woman."  
Norman felt overcome by a wave of homesickeness. He missed his mother so much it hurt like a punch in the gut.  
He could only nod as she set the pot of rice on the stove.

"Can you chop an onion?" she asked.  
Still not trusting himself to say anything, he nodded again and she motioned for him to sit down at the tiny table next to the dresser. She handed him a knife, board and a small, soft onion. He started to chop it, removing the slightly brown outer skins, but she tsk-tsked and took the knife, chopping them up the skins he had rejected.  
"As much as you can," she said. "I have to feed three men with one onion. What's your name, by the way?"  
"Norman," he said.  
"You can call me Marie."  
And she smiled again, one of her real smiles.

So Norman chopped more carefully, watching her remove a small jar from the cold cupboard and scraping out a bit of fat, which she heated in a large skillet. She pulled out a glass jar and fished out a clove of garlic from some oil and placed on Norman's chopping board. He chopped it carefully, the strong smell making his stomach melt.

There was a scraping sound and he looked around. The woman knelt beside the panelled wall and used her fingernails to wriggle one free, then pulled its neighbour out, revealing a cavity in the wall behind them.  
"My mother-in-law remembered the first war," she said. "I was only a girl then, but she remembered the food shortages. As soon as she thought war was on the horizon, she started to stock-pile."

She pulled out two tins with gaudy labels and a third smaller one that had no wrapper.  
"Not that she told anyone," the doctor continued, reaching deeper inside. "She preserved food and made jam and sauerkraut and all kinds of things ... "  
her voice became indistinct as she stuck her head into the hole, looking for something in its dark depths -  
"... and she never told us. So we survived on rotten meat and bad bread till the day she died. I don't know how it bad it would have had to get before we finally got to eat it, but when I was clearing out her apartment on the other side of the courtyard, looking for things to keep and things to burn in the stove, I found a little secret pile of food."

She withdrew her head, holding up a big glass jar with red fruit inside. She looked triumphant.  
"Aha!" she said.

"What's that?" Norman asked.  
"Cherries," she replied. "Cherries in vodka. So good. You eat this in the United States?"  
"No, ma'am," he said.  
"You will love it," Marie said.  
Her eyes were shining at the prospect of their feast: she studied the cans on the table. "Spam," she said, holding it up. "What is this?"  
She pronounced it _shpam_, something Norman found suddenly funny.  
"Where did you get _shpam_?" he wanted to know.  
"From me," Don's voice called.  
Norman jumped. He'd forgotten about the sergeant, who was obviously listening to their every word on the other side of the door.  
"Is it meat?" she whispered.  
"We think so," Norman replied. "But I can't guarantee it."  
She grinned at him and opened the tins, waving her hand in front of her nose as the kitchen was filled with the smell.

"Okay," she said, "you can sit down inside with – "  
She jerked a thumb at the door.  
"If it's all right by you, I'll stay here and watch you cook," Norman said quietly, almost whispering. She nodded in reply.

He watched her fry the onions, the garlic, chop the spam meat into cubes and add them to the skillet. She opened the other two cans and tipped tomatoes over the mix, adding water from the tap.  
His stomach growled so loudly she looked over at him in surprise.  
"Sorry," he mumbled.

He heard Boyd enter the room and peered around the door. The other soldier was dressed similarly to him, in a large woollen sweater and flannel pyjamas pants.  
Boyd caught his eye and said defensively, "No point in getting clean only to put those clothes back on again."

Don stood up and came into the kitchen.  
"How long will the food be?" he asked.  
Norman noticed he did not look at the German woman, pretending to study the dresser, the stovetop, the shelves.  
"Fifteen, twenty minutes?" she replied, her back to him.  
The sergeant said nothing and left.  
She muttered something in German beneath her breath and Norman knew instinctively it wasn't anything flattering.  
"Sergeant Collier can be a bit rough sometimes," he began, suddenly feeling the need to defend him. "But he's not bad. Honest. He's a good man, deep down."  
"Deep down?" she echoed. "Deep down all men are good men, I am told. But in the past few years I have come to the conclusion that you have to dig very deep in most men to find the good."

She turned to the sink, grasping the heavy rice pot and he saw her face, set coldly. She did not say anything as she strained the rice, returning the pot to the stove. She handed Norman cutlery and said,  
"You can ... what is the word? Make the table?"  
"Set the table," he said and he laid out the cutlery, carefully pushing the cigarette packs aside.  
Bible, sitting incongruously on the dainty couch, watched them put out plates and glasses without offering to help. Norman pretended to study the books on her shelves, looked out the window at the shadows lengthening across the courtyard, while Boyd dozed and Marie wiped down the kitchen.

Don returned to the room. His face was freshly-shaven, pink and clean. Like the other two, he wore a woollen sweater but, bigger than Bible and Norman, his sweater fit across his broad shoulders. He wore the loose pants she'd laid out and his feet were clad in the same thick black socks the others had on. He grinned at Norman when he caught the boy looking at his feet; the sergeant was experiencing the same satisfaction at the sensation of warm, dry toes as the private was.

Marie placed the pot of rice on a mat on the table and then fetched the iron skillet with the sauce. Wordlessly, she started to dish the meal out into soup plates, handing the first heaping of food to Don. Their eyes met briefly and he nodded his thanks before she looked away.

She quickly distributed the rest of the food and Norman was glad to see there was plenty for second helpings, maybe even third.  
"Ain't we gonna say grace?" Bible asked as Norman grabbed his spoon.  
"Make it quick," Don growled.  
"Our father, we thank you for keeping us alive long enough to execute your will and show this godforsaken country- this country _forsaken by God_ – what it deserves," Bible said, his head bowed. "For enabling us to trounce that fucker, Hitler, and bring his army of evil to its knees."  
Don sighed audibly.  
"Thank you for providing us with this food – "  
"And the hands that made it," Norman added softly.  
Bible said nothing.  
" – for providing us with this food, _amen_."  
"Amen," the woman said.  
She smiled at Boyd.  
"_Guten Appetit_," she said pleasantly.

They ate in silence: Norman wolfed his down. It was hot and tasty, he couldn't get it into his stomach fast enough. He kept his head down and ate quickly, scraping his spoon against the plate to get up the last grains of rice. When he looked up, Don and the woman were grinning at him openly.

"You eat like a horse," she said. "Head down: _chomp, chomp, chomp_."  
She stood and refilled his plate, hesitating a moment before refilling Boyd's.  
Tempered by the hot meal, the gunner was less combative; he even said thank you when she placed the steaming plate in front of him.  
She cocked her head at Don. Norman saw him look at the pot in the centre of the table for a brief second, a second of longing, then the sergeant shook his head and pulled his cigarettes from his pocket.  
"There's enough," she said quietly. "There's plenty."  
He hesitated, so she took his plate and filled it, scraping the skillet for the last bit of sauce.

The sergeant ate hungrily.  
Norman noticed she didn't help herself to seconds.  
"Have you ... have you had enough?" he asked.  
He felt he should offer her some of his, but it pained him to think of parting with a single mouthful.  
"I'm saving some space for dessert," she said with a wry wink.  
Don glanced up at the mention of dessert.  
"If we're going to have dessert, we should have music," he said and smiled at Boyd, almost jovial. Bible grimaced, grim again.

Marie gathered up the plates and went back into the kitchen while Don flicked through her gramophone records. He selected one and set it on the turntable, carefully putting the needle in place. The room was filled with classical music, light notes that reminded Norman of summer.

"What the fuck, Don?" Boyd snarled. "Are we playing house now? Are we playing Happy Families – mom, dad, two boys just in from football practice?"  
Don shrugged.  
"We got a night off, is all. Forgive me if I actually want a night off from this fucking war, Bible."  
"What? A night _off_? We get a time-out now? We get to pretend none of this is happening?"  
"You don't like it, son, feel free to put back on your filthy clothes and go sleep in the Fury," Don snapped. "I ain't gonna stop you."  
"These people are the spawn of Satan," Bible hissed. "The only good German is a dead German. You've seen what they did. They didn't try stop that maniac coming to power; oh no, they practically carried him on their shoulders. Every. Single. One of them is implicit."  
"I thought you were all about God's forgiveness," Norman shot at him.  
He didn't know where the words came from but as soon as he said them, Bible shot him a poisonous glance.  
"God's forgiveness won't save them from man's justice," Bible said.

Marie cleared her throat and placed a bowl in front of Boyd, then another in front of Don.  
She silently went back into the kitchen and returned with two more, the little can jammed under her arm.  
"Hot cherries," she said, "And be careful, they _are_ hot."  
She opened the small tin and poked a finger carefully inside, then raised it to her lips.  
"It's... _Kondensmilch_," she said, looking to Don for a translation.  
"Condensed milk," he said.  
To Norman's surprise, she poured the some of the thicky creamy contents over his cherries, then did the same for the other bowls.  
"Try it," she said, raising her spoon.

Norman did; a wave of pleasure ran down his back.  
The cherries were sweet and the juice was mouth-watering. The cherries had been cooked long enough to burn off most of the alcohol, leaving a thick red sauce with a tiny kick. The condensed milk ran in rivulets over the fruit and he ate it, closing his eyes with pleasure.  
This was the single most delicious thing he had ever eaten.

"This is wonderful. Isn't it, boys?" Don said.  
They murmured in agreement.  
"Best thing I've eaten, oh, since 1938 or thereabouts."  
The sergeant grinned at Marie and she looked back at him with her wary face, before granting him a small smile.  
"It's good, isn't it, Bible?" he persisted.  
Bible murmured something non-committal.  
"I'd say it's the best thing he's ever eaten that was made by the spawn of Satan," Marie said, delicately scraping her bowl.

Bible harrumphed.  
"I'm not going to apologise for that," he said.  
"And I wouldn't either, in your position," replied Marie. "But we're not all evil, you know."  
"Not what I've seen," Bible said shortly.  
He held her gaze coldly.  
"That's too easy, though, isn't it?" she said.  
"What's too easy?"  
"It's easy just to assume that we're all just evil, that we all have some basic fault in our ... in our souls, some lack of humanity that is specifically German."  
"I don't know what you're getting at," Bible said, putting down his spoon.

"Well, if you can believe that, then it means that anything you do to us in return is justified. Because we're evil. We deserve it."  
There was silence at the table.  
Marie cleared her throat.  
"I had a pregnant woman at my door one night about ... oh, about three weeks ago. She was heading east, away from the Americans. They had come to her village but they hadn't surrendered voluntarily ... so when it was over, the soldiers raped the girls and women. She lost count after eleven. Eleven men. She was seventeen. I did what I could, but I don't think she'll ever ... I don't think I could do enough."  
"American soldiers wouldn't do that," Boyd said stubbornly, shaking his head. "I don't believe that."  
Don stared at him.  
"They would. They do," he said.  
"I told her not to go east," Marie continued. "The Russians are in the east and they, if we are to believe the reports from people fleeing, they are even worse."

Boyd stared at her. Norman noticed that his eyes were shiny. It looked like he would cry.

"Hitler is a fool. He's a _monster_," Marie continued, ignoring him. "And he was supported by a lot of foolish people and, yes, many monstrous people as well. He came to power because he told them what they wanted to hear: he would make things better. He would make Germany a great country, the envy of the world. Jobs for everyone! New cars, nice homes. And they believed him because it's easier to believe a pleasant lie than an unpleasant truth."  
She shrugged.  
"So we maybe you're right: we deserve what we get. For our hubris. And for our stupidity."

Marie stood and started to gather the plates.  
"But we are not all intrinsically evil. You cannot tell me that something like this, someone like this, could not happen in the United States."  
"No, ma'am," Bible said. "It could not."

She walked into the kitchen, laughing hoarsely.  
_"Du blöder Depp,"_ she said.  
Norman didn't need to know German to understand what she said.

Don stood up.  
"Well, this has been lovely," he said. "Norman, go help the woman wash up. Bible, you look tired. Overwrought. All this discussion of politics at the dinner table seems to have puckered you right out."  
"Sure has," Bible replied grimly.  
He kept his head bowed.  
"Why don't you go take a lie down?" Don said conversationally. "We have to be back at that town square for 6 a.m. tomorrow. Head to bed now and you'll get the best part of twelve hours' sleep."  
Boyd stood up wordlessly and left the room.  
Don pulled a cigarette from the pack and flicked his lighter.  
"You heard what I said. Go help the woman," he said, taking a drag.  
Norman stood up, glad to escape to the kitchen.


	4. Chapter 4: The Night

It wasn't the first time she'd had soldiers in her apartment. The local SS had come to the village, trundled down the cobbled streets in their noisy cars, shouting at the civilians. They'd spoken to the mayor; they'd spoken to Father Hoffmann; at some point the inevitable had happened and a slight little man with a receding hairline had ended up in her living room, three of his armed cohorts rifling through her things.

Then, as now, she had felt every finger on every book as though it were on her own skin: every time they yanked something off one of her shelves or shoved something out of the way with their foot, she knew it was but a matter of time before their hands would yank her roughly to one side, before she would feel the underside of someone's boot.

But what could they say?  
Yes, she had spent many years in the country of the enemy, but she had no English books or papers, no letters from English friends. She didn't even have English gramophone records, just a collection of the great German composers – Wagner, Brahms, Beethoven, their covers well-worn and well-loved.  
She had clearly turned her back on her deviant past.  
"_Vorbildlich_," the man had smiled.  
Exemplary.  
"_Selbstverständlich_," she said, a touch defiantly. _"Ich liebe mein Land."_  
Of course. I love my country.

The little man with the little smile could not fault her.  
She had obediently signed up for nursing duties; her workbasket was full of wool and needles, as she repurposed old sweaters to knit socks for the German troops. If there were rumours that people had seen lights through the chinks in the shutters in the abandoned surgery at odd hours of the night, there was certainly no proof that anyone – any inofficial anyones - in need of medical help had ever passed through.  
The soldiers had rifled the office on the ground floor and reported that everything was clean but it contained no medical equipment.

_Where was it all?_ the little man wondered aloud.  
"I donated it to our troops," she said and found the _Quittung_, the receipt, for her donation.  
Everything had been recorded correctly and properly, as was to be expected. There was a list of instruments and equipment that she had dutifully handed over for the use of the Reich.

"_Vorbildlich_," the man said again.  
The little man had looked at her through narrowed eyes, but Marie had kept her face calm, serene. Humble and modest, eyes downcast.  
"_Eine gute deutsche Hausfrau, eine fromme Kriegswitwe. __Ein Vorbild für das Dorf,_" the slight little man had said.  
A good German housewife. A chaste war widow. An example for the village.  
His tone bore the slightest trace of mocking.

But he'd left her, the little apartment turned upside-down, with a bow and a smile. She stood at the window of the front bedroom, watching them through the net curtains as they walked down the street. Across the street, she saw a shadow behind the curtains of the Winkelbauers' apartment. She knew who had reported her.

All the time they were there, she had breathed as though under water: tiny sips of air, cautious, careful.  
The men filled her rooms with their heavy boots, the reek of their sweat, the weight of their threat.  
She had walked across a precipice on a tightrope and only when they had left did she realize that she had reached the other side.

xXx

Now she was balanced over a chasm again, only this time she didn't know what was on the other side.

The two boys – the little one with the innocent eyes and the antagonistic young man who did not try to disguise his sneers – were bickering in the bathroom.  
She went into the living room to fetch some clothes from the cupboard in her bedroom and found the older man there, the sergeant.  
He was standing by the table, his hand resting on the satchel he'd brought with him. Her room seemed smaller with him in it; it smelled of his boot leather, his dirt and his sweat. And his eyes followed her as she entered the room.

"Come here," he ordered.  
She hesitated.  
"Come on," he said.  
She walked towards him, her feet dragging.  
She stopped in front of him and stared straight ahead, at the buttons on his shirt.  
The man said nothing.  
They stood in silence for seconds – a dozen seconds? A minute? – then she reluctantly looked up.

He was staring down at her and she couldn't read his face. He was still grubby: some of the blood from his wound had dried in his eyebrows. He had a scar over his lip and he needed to shave, but his face was intelligent, assessing. He was looking at her as though he was trying to figure something out.  
Figure _her_ out, perhaps. She stared him down, jutting her chin out to belie any fear.

The sergeant sighed and smiled at her.  
He looked tired, she realized. Exhausted, defeated.  
As he stared at her, his shoulders hunched, and then he turned and flipped open the flap on his satchel.  
He withdrew two tins and placed them on the table.  
"For dinner," he said curtly.

She moved to pick them up but he held out a hand to stop her and pulled out two packets of cigarettes. Without looking at the woman beside him, he placed them on the table.  
They both looked at the cigarettes, neither looking at the other.

"I don't smoke," she said finally.  
"Then don't smoke them," the sergeant shot back.  
"No, thank you, you can keep them," said Marie.  
He looked down at her, setting his jaw.  
"You're turning them down?" Collier said. "You really don't want them?"  
Marie felt the desire to squirm, she felt her cheeks grow hot.  
"_Jede deutsche Frau weiß genau was die Amis erwarten, wenn sie ihre Dreckskippen verschenken,_" she said coldly.  
Every German woman knows what the Americans expect when they hand out their filthy cigarettes.  
"What do they expect?" he asked, staring at her.  
She felt too embarrassed to reply.  
"What do they expect?" he repeated, relentless.  
"Are you trying to buy me for two packets of cigarettes?"  
He laughed.  
"A man can get a lot for two packs of cigarettes in this country," he said and moved away, brushing past her as he did so.  
He went over to the bookshelf and took down a photo-album, began flicking through it.

She gasped.  
"Leave that alone!"  
"Is this your wedding day?" he asked, holding it up for her to see.  
"That is none of your business," she snapped and tried to grab it.  
He smiled and held it up, out of her reach.  
"Give it to me," she cried in a low voice and stood on her toes, trying to pull his sleeve.  
He held it above her head, grinned at her teasingly, leaned in so his face was close to hers. She felt her breath slow, it was hard not to wince, but she stayed stock-still, kept her eyes fixed on his. He swallowed, his eyes flickered to her mouth and she drew a breath. He touched a finger to her cheek and stroked it gently.

Marie felt the tightrope sway precariously beneath her feet.

The door of the living room opened and the sergeant lowered his hand, lightning-quick.  
She used the opportunity to snatch the album and shove it back into its place on the shelf.  
"_Nein_," she snapped at him and walked off into the kitchen on shaky legs.

xXx

After dinner, he sent the angry one to bed and allowed Norman to help her clean up. She took as long as she could, lingering over every washed plate.

The boy seemed complicit: he stood by her side under the dim light in the kitchen as she scrubbed the dishes, drying each one with undue diligence. They talked about music and Charlie Chaplin films she remembered from before the war. Marie thought that if they dragged it out long enough, maybe the sergeant would fall asleep at the table – stretch out his long legs on her little sofa and doze off.

But he didn't.  
After a while she felt his presence and looked up. He was leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen, watching her.  
"Finished?" he said to Norman.  
"Yes, sir," the boy replied.  
"Good. Say good night to our hostess."  
"Good night," Norman said and an expression fleeted across his face as he looked from Collier to her.  
_Helplessness_, Marie thought.  
He knew what would happen when he left her alone.

"_Gute Nach_t," she said, smiling. "Sleep well."  
She patted his shoulder reassuringly and he left, glancing behind him as he closed the door.  
Collier waited till the door clicked shut and turned to her. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it.

Marie had had enough. She needed to grasp the reins again.  
"I'll show you where you can sleep," she said, squeezing past him in the door ´way.  
She threw open the double doors at the end of the living room and led him across the threshold into what had once been the sitting room. She'd dragged a bed frame and two heavy mattresses halfway across the house by herself, pushing the bed up beside the bookshelf that contained her husband's medical books and their collection of the complete works of Goethe and Schiller.

"I will sleep on the sofa," she said defiantly.  
"You won't fit on the sofa," he said, looking around.  
He pressed the mattress of the bed, pretending to test its firmness. He looked at the pictures on the wall, touched the bedpost; looked everywhere except at her.  
"Then I can sleep on the floor," she said.

"Sleep here," he said.  
It was so soft, it was barely audible. He wasn't looking at her, so she wasn't even sure of what she'd heard.  
"I'm sorry?"  
"Sleep here," Collier repeated. "With me. I won't hurt you, I promise."  
He reached out and placed a fingertip on the back of her hand.  
It was barely a touch but it sent a shock through her bones.

The tightrope shook and there was a rushing sound in her ears, so loud that she couldn't hear what he was saying.  
She stared at him, shaking her head uncomprehendingly.  
The American cleared his throat and said again, "Sleep here."  
She shook her head.  
"I don't have much time," he said. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay alive."

She laughed bitterly.  
"I'm sure that line works all the time," she replied  
His jaw worked, then he rubbed his eyes wearily.  
"My bow gunner was killed a few days ago."  
Marie didn't know what a bow gunner was, so she shrugged.

"He got shot in the head," Collier said. "Blew his head clean off. His brains splattered all over my pants. We drove his headless corpse back to base, sat in a tank with what was left with him for hours while we took some Nazi fire. And some of that blood I had on my face was his. Yeah, doctor, I've been wearing a dead man's blood for three days. We're basically all that's left of my division. I don't expect to survive this."

He looked at her bleakly.  
"You and me – " he started. "I thought you felt - I thought you might be, you might let me – "  
She shook her head again. She didn't know what to say.  
"I won't force you, but I don't have much time," he said again in a flat, toneless voice. He turned his palms up beseechingly. "I don't have much time left."

The tightrope bucked and she felt herself falling.  
"Very well," she whispered. "I will stay."

xXx

She got up in the middle of the night to wash, creeping into the kitchen to fill a basin of water. She didn't want to use the bathroom in case she might wake – or even worse - encounter one of the young soldiers in the room beside it.

Collier was sleeping on his back, his arm thrown across the bed, the other covering his face.  
Even in sleep, he was trying to shield his eyes, she thought, as she pulled up the blanket over his naked chest.  
He had been a good lover – or had tried to be.  
The first time he was rough and impatient, and she'd squirmed under his weight as he thrust inside her, his eyes closed, face buried in her neck. When he came, he rolled off her and looked at the ceiling, his face expressionless.

Then he rubbed his eyes and turned on his side to face her.  
"I'm sorry," he whispered. That weary look had returned. "Please forgive me."  
Marie shrugged.  
_Whatever_, she thought.  
At least it was over with.  
She turned her back to him and stared at the wall, willing him to just go asleep so she could get up and sit in the cool kitchen by herself.

After a few minutes, she felt a tentative hand stroke her shoulder. When she didn't brush him away, he moved closer, inch by inch, until his body was curled around hers, then he wriggled an arm under her neck so he could wrap her close.  
"I'm sorry," he whispered again.  
This time, she nodded and felt his breath on her shoulder like a sigh.

She waited till she felt his even breathing, then she fell asleep herself. When she woke the next time, he was gently kissing her the nape of her neck, brushing his fingers along her arms.  
"It'll be better this time," he promised.  
And it was.

xXx

Marie thought about asking the boys not to open the shutters, but decided against it.  
The Winkelbauers knew she had soldiers in the apartment, they'd seen the men enter her yard and they had surely noted that they had not left. If there was anyone left to report it to, they would report it just as soon as the American tanks had rolled out of the village.  
What was the point of pretending?  
Might as well be in for a penny as in for a pound, after all.

Instead, she knocked on the door early in the morning, went in and threw open the windows and shutters with a cheery, "Good morning!" before going back into the kitchen to brew the coffee Collier had pulled from his satchel. The two young soldiers blinked in the bright light, startled, and the young one moaned as though she'd doused him in water.

"Are they awake?" the sergeant asked when she came back in.  
"They are now," she grinned.  
He grabbed her hand as she passed and pulled her on to his knee.

They sat there, silently, her head resting on his, till they heard the bedroom door open.  
Marie jumped up and Collier picked up the newspaper on the table and opened it with a rustle. The living room door opened and the young one, Norman, peeked his head in, looking from the sergeant to Marie, before sliding around the door and taking his seat at the table.  
The other one, the one the sergeant called Bible, came in with a clatter, scraping his chair as he pulled it back. A good night's sleep hadn't made him less angry; if anything he seemed to be more antagonistic than ever, glaring at the sergeant, then directing his gaze at her.

"Sleep well?" he snapped, as she placed a cup of coffee in front of him.  
"Like a baby," she replied sweetly, glancing up at Collier with a smile while Bible fumed.

The men ate breakfast quickly, silently, and then the sergeant told the two soldiers to pack their things, get moving.  
Marie followed them out into the hall, opened the door of the apartment to let them out.  
"Thank you, ma'am," Norman said.  
Bible squared up to her.  
"Thank you," he said in an effort to be civil.  
"You're welcome," she said.  
They went out the door, but Collier lingered.

"When this is over - " he began and stopped. "When this is over - if I survive this, I'll come back for you."  
She felt a rush of darkness wash over her, a premonition. She raised her hand to his face, touched the ugly scar on his lip and said,  
"You won't."  
"Survive or come back to you?" he asked jokingly.  
She tried to smile.  
"Goodbye, Sergeant Collier. _Viel Glück_."

He nodded and went down the stairs.


End file.
